Patrick Mahomes Week 7 film review: Better than I thought

On a day the run game dominated and stats were poor, Mahomes was fine even by his standard, with some bad luck.

Patrick Mahomes was probably better than you think he was against the 49ers.

That statement, of course, depends on how you think Mahomes played on Sunday. His stat line was quite poor (that’s been talked about ad nauseum), and watching the game live the offense didn’t look particularly impressive even on a day it put up a solid 28 points. I watched the game live thinking Mahomes struggled, even as he made enough “only Mahomes” plays to be relevant to talk about the next day.

That said, gameday analysis can be tricky. It’s impossible for me, even after 10+ years of doing this job, to separate the emotion of watching the Chiefs play from analyzing what is occurring on the field. Then, of course, there’s the whole “all 22 vs broadcast view” issue. And finally, there’s the problem of not quantifying things as they occur and rather going on a vibes-based memory (unless you chart live during games, which I just can’t bring myself to do).

All that is a long road to a short thought that one must be cautious about what one takes from a one-time, live game viewing experience. Not that you can’t know ANYTHING, but it’s tough to know enough about an overall performance to make definitive statements. That’s part of the reason I do what I do to be perfectly honest. You know, go beyond the box score, which also means going beyond the one-time emotional viewing experience in which we can’t see the whole field.

Anyways, let’s talk about Mahomes’ Week 7 film. It was a game that was partly defined by a few key missed plays (in a game where the offense took limited shots), and partly defined by the yards Mahomes created under duress.

The fact that none of us even twitched when Mahomes made this throw says something about how inoculated we’ve become to seeing him do weird stuff. And that’s part of why, in my opinion, many of us (myself included) didn’t realize that he played well in Week 7 overall during a (of course) weird game.

The goal here will be to talk about why the game was a bit weird in a way that tends to create a lower statistical output, and how missing on just a couple of plays in a game like that can result in such an anemic box score even as the offense puts up 4 TD’s. So in a way, while we’re talking about Mahomes’ film this week as usual, there’s a bigger overall point to think about as well.

If you’re looking for the previous weeks’ film reviews, you can find them here.

-Week 1 (which lays out the terms and methodology)

-Week 2

-Week 3

-Week 4

-Week 5

(FYI, this will be a slightly abbreviated film review given it’s Saturday already. Apologies, as much of my time was spent on the day job and charting DeAndre Hopkins’ 2024 routes. My focus will be on that larger issue and how game flow can affect stats so much)

First, the numbers.

There are a couple of things that people who have been following the Mahomes film reviews should notice right away. The first would be that the “missed shots” and “happy feet” snaps went back to being low this week. That’s highly encouraging in a season where Mahomes has struggled to trust his OL and it’s resulted in him dropping his eyes too quickly and missing some opportunities (particularly to Xavier Worthy).

Now, that DID happen once, and on a fairly important play given that it resulted in the Chiefs not moving the chains on 3rd down. Let’s start with one of the few genuinely bad Mahomes plays of the day, since our overall theme is that he WASN’T actually as bad as the box score.

Watch Kelce here, then watch how Mahomes progresses (or doesn’t) when the first side of the field’s route combinations don’t come open.

This could be utilized as a case study for why “happy feet” and “missed shots” are generally directly related to one another. The Niners cover Perine and Skyy Moore’s side of the field well. What Mahomes ought to do then is immediately transition to the other side of the field. The pocket is messy, but there’s not real pressure present.

However, instead of doing so you can see Mahomes drop his eyes and look at the rush, which (as it almost always does) results in his feet getting out of place and results in him making meaningless (and frantic) pocket movements. More importantly, though, it delays him looking to the right side of the field. That’s a shame, because Kelce and Justin Watson’s route combination (along with a little bit of Worthy’s gravity, which we’ll come back to) has resulted in Kelce coming open past the 1st down marker. Because of the happy feet, Mahomes doesn’t see it until it’s too late, and he’s sacked rather than what should have been a first down and a continued drive.

Again, this is a terrific example of how happy feet (which includes dropped eyes the vast majority of the time) affects QB play and messes with a timing-based offense. Had Mahomes just trusted his progressions here, that’s a first down. He’s had too many of these plays this year (for him), and it’s part of why the offense has struggled. One cannot blame the play call, the blocking, or his receivers. This is on him.

The good news? That’s the only legitimate “happy feet” snap I charted all game. That’s very cleaned up from the last several weeks overall, despite the fact that the 49ers were able to get some pressure on him (7 “flushes” is a low number, but when you take into account the lower number of real dropbacks Mahomes had it’s higher as a percentage than I’d like). That’s very good news moving forward.

The other thing that’s worth noting in the charting was just how few “multiple read” plays there were. There are a few reasons for this. First, the Chiefs ran the ball a ton (39 times in 68 total plays). But additionally, even when they threw the ball there were a lot of single-read plays with the ball designed to come out fast. My assumption is this was partly game planned given SF’s aggressive pass rush, and partly a reaction to losing their most trusted WR in Juju Smith-Schuster early on. That’s why the number of chartable throws for accuracy is so low as well.

Why does that matter? Because it means fewer opportunities. Which means fewer chances to rack up stats. Which means even a few mistakes can lead to a huge dropoff in overall QB production. Mistakes like an inaccurate deep ball that was JUST barely overthrown.

I want you to take a moment and think about narratives and how they hang by a single play so often, particularly in a game where (as we’ve already discussed) there are a smaller number of opportunities.

Here, Worthy runs a terrific route down the field that shows off his absolutely shocking speed. In the meantime, Watson (from the bottom of the screen) runs a route designed to draw the deep safety away from Worthy off that route, which turns t into a footrace. It’s worth noting Kelce’s route opens him up as well thanks to Watson drawing that deep safety. But Mahomes has Worthy open and it’s not 3rd down, so he lets it rip deep. They just BARELY miss connecting here as Mahomes overthrows him by a hair, but i can promise you beyond a shadow of a doubt that defensive coordinators are losing sleep about this shot if they’re planning utilizing 2-deep looks.

This is as good a time as any to talk about the fact that the discussion surrounding 2-high safety looks this season has been a bit odd in that people are acting like it’s impossible to take deep shots against it. It’s not, they just go up the middle of the field more frequently than against single-high.

The goal on a shot play like this is to find a way to either prevent the deep safeties from bracketing Worthy (which works here with Watson’s route) and/or keep them in place long enough that it turns into a footrace that they can’t win. That’s where Worthy’s unique speed comes into play. By the time you get to this still shot of the field, it’s over for the safety. He’s got absolutely no chance of keeping up with a guy who can run like Worthy, who is at full speed, when he hasn’t revved up yet (and there are layers built in to force him to hesitate, such a post/corner route or something else that takes Worthy back outside).

I love everything about this play. The protection, the routes, etc. It’s beautiful. And it just misses by a couple of yards. They need to be taking shots like this 6-8 times a game. We’ll circle back to that, but for now, let’s talk narratives.

If Mahomes puts just a little more air underneath this to give Worthy time to catch up to it (it’s hard to throw a great ball 50+ yards in the air, to be fair, and he didn’t want to miss shallow), two things radically change about his stat line. First, it’s a complete pass rather than incomplete with a TD and 71 yards added on. Next, the subsequent pick 2 plays later (when Worthy loses his feet, not on Mahomes) doesn’t occur. And suddenly, with just a tiny difference in his play, Mahomes is 17/26 for 225 yards (8.7 yards per attempt) and a TD to go along with a pick that was just a batted pass at the line. And the whole conversation about him is different.

This is why, when you play a style that results in fewer chances, hitting on those shots matters so much more. And it’s also why the Chiefs ought to be taking more of these shots to Worthy, who is absolutely separating down the field. It’s a basic math issue… even if you only hit on a third of these plays, if you take 6 of them that’s 2 huge plays per game. Given how well the Chiefs are running the ball (literally the best in the league in success rate right now), stacking on that vertical component could mean so much.

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Anyways, shrinking things back down to Mahomes’ statistical output vs how well he played vs the Niners, the short story is that on a couple of big plays he had an inaccurate throw despite overall throwing the ball with accuracy. Timing is unfortunate there, but that combined with terrible luck (the 2 picks) took away from his opportunity to make up for those moments statistically and resulted in an anemic day on the scoreboard.

But despite that, he overall played almost mistake-free football, creating yards when needed and generally not allowing the Niners to have a chance to get back into the game. As I talked about Monday, each time the Chiefs needed a big play, he made one. And between those moments he by and large threw the ball accurately, worked well within the offense, and found open guys when they were available (which happened to be Noah Gray on several big plays).

Since we’re using this piece to not just talk about Mahomes but also look at broader issues, watch how the CB at the bottom of the screen is affected by Worthy’s gravity here.

You can see at the start of the clip and during the play that the CB points to the S several times, emphasizing that he needs to be sure to get deep. That is a CB who is terrified of giving up the big play over the top. And it affects his movement, as he doesn’t seem to trust the safety is going to turn and run fast enough. He gets dragged too deep and too far inside while ignoring Gray coming up and into the spot he should be defending. Easy picking for Mahomes.

That’s the impact of having a “gravity” player deep, and I look forward to seeing DeAndre Hopkins exploit that. It’s also worth noting that Worthy’s route here is one that punishes the safety for opening his hips and going down the field (think of it as the opposite as the one Worthy got open down the field that we already talked about). That’s going to give the Raiders’ safeties (and all others) a lot to think about when they see Worthy sprinting towards them.

But I digress. The point here, again, is that Mahomes generally found the right read when it was available and took what the defense was giving him. When he had to create, he did. And that’s a big part of why the Chiefs hung 28 points on a good defense despite Juju going down early AND turning the ball over a couple of times. Because their QB, statistics be darned, played solidly even for the higher standard we (rightfully) hold him to.

We’ll see what tomorrow holds against a Raiders defense that held the Chiefs to their most embarrassing results of 2023 the last time they played. Hopkins should be sprinkled into the gam plan, and Worthy will continue to get pushed into a bigger role (with Hop in town, it may be more of a niche role than I was afraid he’d have to take on, which is good while he learns the strength and technique needed at the pro level). I’m excited to see what a Chiefs team that has surely not forgotten last Christmas’s embarrassment has in store.

But in the meantime, I’m resting pretty easy knowing Mahomes’ play has already started to rebound from his relatively rough start. The stats are almost certain to catch up if that continues.

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